How to buy Siacoin?

Recommended Posts

In this tutorial I will demonstrate how to buy SIA coins using Shapeshift.

What is SIA?

The idea is simple, allow anyone to rent out their storage space and in return reward them for their contribution.

Currently cloud storage services are mostly centralized and the data is stored on a third party server. With Siacoin, the storage would be decentralized as each user would contribute their own share of resources.

So what is Siacoin?

Siacoin is the currency that is used to buy storage space on the SIA network.

So SIA is the cloud storage platform which only accepts Siacoin for payments.

How to buy Siacoin?

An overview of the process is quite simple and it’s a lot like buying ethereum. You will download the SIA wallet and then you will use shapeshift to exchange bitcoin for siacoin.

Download the Sia wallet - download link, this is a zip file so unzip it to your desktop and then run the sia-ui.exe file inside.

Now will need to wait whilst it downloads the entire blockchain, this step can take hours, it took me 8 hours.

To use the wallet the program will give a seed and a password, save this in a safe place.

After the blockchain is downloaded and synced up you will be able to use the wallet, it will ask you for the password again that you have saved.

In the wallet click on “Receive” this will generate an address for you – This will be the address that you are going to use in the next step on Shapeshift.

Now go to https://shapeshift.io and make sure to select bitcoin as the currency you want to exchange for Siacoin

Then you will need to enter your Siacoin address and your bitcoin address, the bitcoin address will be used as a failsafe to refund you should something go wrong in the process. (Something went wrong on some occasions when I did it, but I always received my BTC back in such cased. Not trying to scare anyone, but do keep in mind the crypto boat is not always as smooth sailing.)

Now you will send BTC to the address that shapeshift have given you, this process takes anywhere from minutes to days depending on shapeshift.

Assuming you are lucky and all went smooth, you should now see your transaction completed and the funds reflecting in your Sia wallet.

Some notes:

Each time you want to receive funds you will be given a new address. Do not panic.

For both privacy and security reasons, it's bad to reuse addresses. To help minimize the amount of address reuse, Sia gives you a new address each time you ask for one. For privacy, this makes it more difficult (but not impossible) for people to tell how many coins you own just by looking at the blockchain.

For security, there are sometimes bugs that allow people to learn your private key and steal your funds if you reuse addresses. These bugs are rare, but tend to happen especially on Android, and when using Javascript. Generally speaking, address reuse will not allow people to steal your coins. If you are using secure code, address reuse is okay. But if you don't reuse addresses then you are often safe even on shaky platforms.

Old addresses will still work.

Tips

If you found this tutorial useful, send some Sia love to 18540735ea2ec73b8eb9d459e8c621d6fac02eb9bd328ea3d9fa89e536ad48cf57a8298290df

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

It’s August, so this means it’s time for our second triannual update! We published the first update in April, and are excited to continue this new tradition. This post is long, but read on if you want to understand Sia’s amazing progress over the last four months and our goals for this year

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I have a bunch of SIA, but also some STORJ that I got during their crowdsale a couple of years ago. So far I think STORJ is a lot further down the road than SIA but I think all of them have a great future.

Found on Reddit:

Pros and Cons of Storj and Sia

STORJ

Pros

Very easy to use for individuals and corporations due to (1) variety of accepted payment methods, (2) Easy GUI interfaces

Fixed price

Pay as you go model.

Due to its distributed architecture it is (1) easier to maintain and update, (2) can be scaled to accommodate network requirements.

Faster transfer speeds than the competitors.

Largest network.

Cons

single point of failure of the Storj Labs service (storj bridges).

more subjected to vulnerabilities (e.g. DDOS) due to fragmented system.

More expensive storage than SIA

No storage marketplace for dynamic pricing

SIA

Pros

Fully decentralized, not a single point of failure.

Has a storage marketplace.

Cheaper storage than STORJ.

very secure due to blockchain consensus.

Limited vulnerability risks.

cons

Requires a deposit of SIA coin before-hand in order to rent space on the network.

Only allows the payment with the native SIA cryptocurrency.

Lower ease-of use for both traditional companies and individuals.

Requires the download the entire blockchain first in order to become a farmer, which requires allot of space and hours of synchronization.

Difficult to scale and handle large data volumes due to blockchain limitations.